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Buggy Australian Election; Researchers Denied Access to Source Code of Voting Software
from the putting-trade-secrets-above-democracy dept.
El Reg reports [theregister.co.uk]
[A known bug in the voting software used by the New South Wales Electoral Commission (NSWEC)] relates to extrapolation of voting patterns, a technique used in some Australian jurisdictions where a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system is used. Voters' second preference candidate can secure a vote if the first preference has already been elected to a chamber using proportional representation.
Counting votes under STV can be laborious, so some jurisdictions decide to just grab a random sample of votes and then use software to extrapolate results based on that sample.
[...]Researchers found an error in the NSWEC's software for counting randomly-selected votes.
The researchers aren't saying the software got the election wrong, rather that it mis-counted votes and therefore reduced candidates' chances to be elected based on the random samples of votes chosen in elections for the council in the town of Griffith. But it reduced the likelihood a long way: from 91 per cent to 10 per cent.
TechDirt picks up the story from there. [techdirt.com]
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has refused to release the relevant software, despite a Senate motion and a freedom of information request. Being able to examine the code is a fundamental requirement, since there is no way of knowing what "black box" e-voting systems are doing with the votes that are entered. A story by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) explains why AEC is resisting [9news.com.au]:
The Australian Electoral Commission referred AAP to a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal [AAT] in December 2015.
In that decision, relating to a freedom of information request, the tribunal found the release of the source code for the software known as Easycount would have the potential to diminish its commercial value.
"The tribunal is satisfied that the Easycount source code is a trade secret and is exempt from disclosure", the AAT said.
Placing trade secrets above the public interest is a curious choice, to say the least. It seems particularly questionable given Australia's recent experience with e-voting software problems
[...]Bugs are commonplace, and there's no particular shame if some are found in a complex piece of software. But refusing to allow independent researchers to look for those bugs so that they can be fixed is inexcusable when the integrity of the democratic selection process is at stake.
